This is the journey of eliminating post-college debt and attaining the dream of retiring early

Friday, September 26, 2008

To buy or to wait

My fiance and I looked at a duplex last night in a really nice neighborhood. We just wanted to get an idea of what a duplex might look like, how much maintenance is required and how much it would cost for that area. My credit is good but his is a little low so we're going to do some creative shuffling of finances to see if we can raise it by 40 points to get a decent loan approval amount through the VA since he served inthe military and they offer smokin good rates. We are really planning on waiting until the March/April timeframe for serious house hunting when my credit cards are totally paid off, his old debt is totally paid off, and we have about $10 grand in our cash emergency fund. I'm about halfway through my MBA and with my financial background I was able to do some creative accounting and if the sellers are willing to work with us we could buy the home in November, but I just don't know if I feel comfortable breaking out apartment lease and jumping into a home without a decent emergency fund. That's the biggest change perhaps when making the jump from renter to homeowner: with the water heater breaks in the appartment we just make a phone call, when it breaks in our home we have to shell out the cash orfix it ourselves. And I'm not particularly fond of ice cold showers....

1 comment:

I think it's a great idea to look into a duplex. That's what my wife and I did before building our new home. We lived very modestly for five years while our friends went out and kept spending and making fun of us. Now they look at us and say, "how are you able to do those things?" My only concern on your post is the words "creative accounting". That sounds like you had to manipulate things in order to be approved. That scares me. You are never wrong to over save. I would wait until you had a comfortable cash position.